


Field of Gravity

by Kalael



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: M/M, old blackice week drabble, sort of powerswap
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-14
Updated: 2013-12-16
Packaged: 2017-12-23 12:21:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/926362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kalael/pseuds/Kalael
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He had once known a boy with bright brown eyes and a blinding smile.  The boy was mischievous but harmless, and above all that boy had loved his sister.  Kozmotis could not fault Jack for doing what he did.  In the end, it had saved his sister’s life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in like May or June ahaha, whenever the first blackice week on tumblr was. I do have more in mind for this but for now I'm labeling it as finished so I don't feel pressured to write more before I get the other projects done.

He had once known a boy with bright brown eyes and a blinding smile.  The boy was mischievous but harmless, and above all that boy had loved his sister.  Kozmotis could not fault Jack for doing what he did.  In the end, it had saved his sister’s life.  But it had also condemned the galaxy, and later the earth, to eons of destruction and war.

Jack had always been selfless, but Kozmotis was not so self-sacrificing.  Even if it meant tearing down the stars, he would find Jack and bring him home once and for all.  Others praised him for his bravery, his courage in going against the monster single-handed.  He is strong, wise, a hero.

But Kozmotis is just a man, and Jack knows that very well.

"You look tired."  Jack purrs (not Jack not Jack not Jack).  Kozmotis straightens his posture and his hand goes to the hilt of his sword, although both of them know that he won’t use it.  "Why not rest?  I could make sure you dream of better times."  Jack smiles and the teeth are black and jagged.

"Your nightmares are not what I seek."  Kozmotis grounds out.  Jack laughs.  He has changed over the years, now colorless against the darkness he shrouds himself in.  His hair has gone white and his eyes became pale blue, contrasting against the smudges of shadow on his cheeks.  He looks ill, and Kozmotis tightens his grip on his sword.

"Your boy won’t come home with you."  Jack says, bored.  He examines his nails, ragged claws, then drags them down his face.  Red blood beads up on pale skin and Kozmotis winces.  "Did you know, he can feel everything?  And see everything.  He won’t come home.  He’ll die of shame, beg you to kill him."

"No."  Kozmotis snaps, and the creatures in Jack’s body howl with amusement.

"No, he says!  Proud soldier, your beloved Jack wants to die.  Won’t you kill him?  It’s all he wants."  They open Jack’s arms and display his thin chest, leaving it open for attack.  They know Kozmotis won’t take the chance, the only chance to end things once and for all.  They laugh again, then gurgle, and suddenly go silent.

Kozmotis looks into those pale eyes and sees Jack, rings of amber around the pupil, staring back.

 _I love you,_ Jack mouths, _please kill me._

"I’ll save you."  Kozmotis vows.  Jack grimaces, his mouth twisting into a silent cry of despair, and then the shadows drag him away.

Jack would die for the sake of peace, but Kozmotis has always been selfish.  He will bring Jack home.


	2. Kinslayer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You may notice a key difference between Jack's memories and Kozmotis' telling of the story. This is because Jack is an unreliable narrator, so keep that in mind for his future chapters.

They make sure he remembers.

Blood on his hands, his fingers in the stomach of his sister, the feel of her intestines under his fingernails.

The way she screamed and cried 

_Jack! Jack Jack please Jack no please no no no no Jack_

The way she went silent as he dug under her ribcage and crushed her lungs.

They had allowed him control of his body for a few agonizing seconds, buried elbow deep in Emma’s body and warm blood smearing the rolled up sleeves of his uniform. He hadn’t been able to move, too shocked to do more than stare at her pale, empty face. He hadn’t even been able to cry.

Seraphina had screamed as the soldiers left to guard them dragged her away. He had held off the shadows within him long enough to ensure her escape, his hands still frozen in his sister’s chest with a still heart brushing against his fingertips. He had felt death then, felt the life going out of someone under his own hands. The fearlings consumed him once more in that moment of horror, and the fear has never left him. He knows what the fearlings can do, what acts they can force him to commit.

He is weak and sad. He is a husk without a voice, and in the end it is easier to hide under the layers of darkness than it is to watch the horrors his own hands are responsible for.

It’s not dissimilar to the video games children play in the modern age of earth, first person shooters where you see the hands on a screen and the firing of a gun. Blood splatter on the camera lens and the disembodied howls of pain created by data in the gaming system. None of that is real. If he watches through the eyes of the shell he is trapped in, it just looks like imaginary death. He knows better, though. He knows the reality of the situation and the fearlings are all too eager to show him over and over and over again just what they can do.

 _What **we** can do,_ they coo at him. _Look how powerful we are. Look how powerful you made us, Jack, look at how powerful we’ve made you!_

He had always wanted to be powerful. He’d wanted to serve and protect with that power. They made a mockery of that desire and twisted it, because they gave him the power he could have used to meet his self-righteous ends but they also reduced him to a small conscious trapped within his own body.

He remembers the blood on his tongue as they licked his hands clean.

He remembers Kozmotis, staring him down over a bottomless chasm in the middle of the destroyed capital, sword trembling in hand and a thousand words echoing soundlessly in his mouth.

_I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry._

Kozmotis had sheathed his sword and wept. The fearlings had hesitated, wondering if killing him then was to their advantage, but the fear and despair had tasted so delicious that they left him be in that wreckage with the promise that they would meet again.

They did meet again. A hundred, a thousand times over the course of a millenium, each century growing longer than the last. Eventually he grew numb to it. He can’t feel anything but fear, an all encompassing terror that the fearlings cultivate and feed from. 

They play her screams in his ear when they are alone in the night, stranded on earth and living off the scraps of children’s nightmares. The Guardians were the best and worst things to happen to him. They ended the dark age, they created a light too strong to snuff out. Millions of little lights, small children like Emma who look at the world with awe.

He hates them, sometimes. Their innocence, their peaceful faces as they sleep.

Emma had looked like she was sleeping, in the end. He had closed her eyes and wiped the blood from her face and she looked like she had dozed off to one of his lullabies. Kozmotis would come in a carry her to bed and then they would curl together by the fire and kiss softly as the sun rose.

Instead Kozmotis tracks him across the earth, preventing the Guardians from destroying him once and for all under some misguided hope that Jack is still here.

He isn’t here anymore. He’s an unheard voice in a hollow body.

He remembers, and he waits for the day the screaming will stop.


End file.
